Frontend Engineer Life: Building What People Actually Experience

When people think about technology, they often focus on coding—but behind every app, website, and digital platform is someone intentionally building the experience users interact with every single day.

In this episode, Kara Branch sits down with Tamara Trotter, frontend engineer and technology leader, to break down what frontend engineering really looks like beyond the screen. From designing user-friendly experiences to solving technical problems in real time, Tamara shares how creativity, strategy, and engineering all come together in her work.

This conversation gives listeners a real “day in the life” look into software engineering, including the skills required to succeed, the challenges that come with working in tech, and how frontend engineers help shape the way people experience technology.

Tamara also shares her journey into engineering, the importance of representation in technology spaces, and why students—especially young Black girls—should know there is space for them in tech careers too.

If you’ve ever wondered who builds the digital experiences we use every day, this episode is for you.

🎧 Tune in for a real conversation about technology, creativity, problem-solving, and building what people actually experience.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Welcome back to Black Girls Do Engineers podcast. I'm Kyra Brand, chemical engineer and founder and CEO of Black Girls Do Engineers. And today we're getting into one of the most visible parts of technology, but also one of the most misunderstood. This is the part of our Day in a Life series, and we're talking about front-end engineering. The people responsible for building a digital experience we interact with every single day. I'm joined by Tamira Trouder, who's a senior software engineer, front-end lead, and product-focused engineer with years of experience at building user-centered technology solutions. Her work sits at the intersection of design, development, and user experience. Making sure technology not only works, but actually makes sense for the people using it. So today we're breaking down what running an engineer's life really looks like, what the skills behind a theme, and why decide at tech is most important than ever. So let's get into it. So welcome to Mira. Hello. Happy to be here. Yes. So you know, I I know you from volunteering. You are most definitely like one of our most active volunteers with Black Girls New Engineer. You always make time for the girls in our organization. So I'm really happy to have this conversation with you today about your so important role. I feel like it's most definitely one of the hottest roles as we are transitioning heavy in technology these days. And we had a conversation a few weeks back with another UXUI designer, data analyst engineer. And so our listeners got a little bit about what that looks like from the front end. But software engineers play a huge role in every aspect of the front end, the back end, everything that is so important in making those applications and just using technology on an everyday basis. So I am very happy to speak with you. I know a lot of students who are pursuing software engineering. A funny story is what black girls do engineer. That's really how we started because my daughter wants to be a software engineer. So it's a huge part of our history. And so I'm really excited to get into a conversation with you today about what that really means for our listeners who want that deeper dive to really go into your world and just all your experiences. So first, tell us a little bit about your background. When I asked that question, it's really based on our big word exposure. Some people had it, some people did not on their journey to becoming a STEM professional. So tell us about who you are and a little background about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Absolutely. But before I jump into that, I you know, obviously want to thank you for inviting me here. And like you mentioned, I'm very, very active in the Black Girls Do Engineering community. I think it's very important that we have this space to kind of show the black girls that we do do engineering. So I'm excited to be here and excited to talk about my journey. So a little bit about my background. Again, I'm Tamara Trotter. I am from Detroit, Michigan. Little black girl who didn't have a whole lot of engineers or any tech people kind of around me, but I was a little girl who loved video gaming. So, you know, when I was smaller, I knew that I wanted to get involved and build video games, but I'm also an artist. So I like photography, graphic design. You know, I didn't know that's what it was back in the day. But, you know, I knew that I was going to end up in engineering, but I always thought it was gonna be video gaming. So, you know, like I say, I grew up single, single parent household. My mom raised me and my brothers. And again, I didn't have a whole lot of exposure to technology. I just knew where I needed to go. Kind of giving away my age a little bit of, you know, kind of how I got into front-end engineering is MySpace, right? Like us old heads, we know what MySpace is. We know how fun it was to kind of develop those pages, and but we did not know that that was front-end engineering, where we're changing the backgrounds, changing the colors and things like that. So that's what what kind of kind of brought me kind of to the intersection of front-end engineering instead of gaming, because I was like, okay, this is fun, this is cute, I love making my pages for my friends. I'm already doing this, so like, how can I make money? And another catalyst for that was I'm also an avid traveler, and I knew engineering could give me an opportunity, a space to work remotely. So I had a lot of things going for me into something that I knew that I would like. So that's that's a little bit about my background again. Just first gen college, but I didn't graduate. And you know, we can talk a little bit more about like how untraditionally I ended up here, and I've been in this space, specifically the engineering part of it, for over eight years, and I love it here.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

So oh, great thing. So, first of all, shout out to MySpace. We need MySpace to come back. Yeah, good times. Like people don't understand unless she was a part of that era. We have a lot of great social media platforms, but a lot of us was coding. We didn't know we were coding.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

We did not know it, but it brought me here. So I'm happy. Oh, the hot songs, your friend, your top friends list, don't get caught without putting your bestie on there. Yeah, make sure they was there.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

And we had no understanding of what we were doing until now, being in the technical world, we were like, we were doing a lot. So MySpace most definitely, I know he's probably having the time of his life. I'm sure somebody put billions in his pocket.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

But he's most definitely was one of the greatest platforms, I believe. Social media platforms.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

I think he I think he kind of jump started a lot of this. You know, it was a lot of inspiration. There was a lot of, I guess, like sister platforms that kind of developed from that. But yeah, I know he got that bread. I wish it was me. Yeah, it was a cool platform.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

It was like one ones today, where you have to just create your information and post a few pictures. My space took some time.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

It took some time, but like we we were hyper focused. We were in it though. I was at least on that. I was I was hustling, making other people's pages. So, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

So it was like a business thing for you to. Yeah, absolutely. So that was great to see that that inspired you. I love how you talked about being a gamer. So the funny part about that was when my daughter went to pursue software engineering, it's because she was a gamer. Many of the children we work with are gamers. All of them, I feel most of them are gamers, they play a lot of games. And what I wanted my daughter to understand was how to be the one behind creating the game. There's so much money that goes into it, but to be able to develop your own, you can make a lot of money from that entrepreneurial realm. So man, yeah, yeah. And so I love how you talked about that. So, for like our listeners who are gamers and you don't know what to do, this may be your lane. And so I love that you mentioned that. You know, I have to talk about Detroit though, because we're about to be in Detroit, and I really want to analyze the need. So, from my experience of going to Detroit a few times, first of all, we're going to Detroit because as soon as we release stuff, like Detroit just ate it up. They loved it, they showed out for us.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

I mean, we show love all day. You give us an opportunity as Detroit is definitely a hustle city too. So you tell Detroit how to make some money, we'll figure it out for sure.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Yeah. People were just cool. We went and did our event, people showed up, companies showed up. We were just like, man, I love this. And so we were like, we have to go and do more. So now we're gonna be there. And so now it's becoming this tech infrastructure, I believe. And in Detroit is a lot of tech happening right now, so it's something beautiful. But let's talk a little bit about what the need is from you growing up there and to where we are now with Detroit.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah, sure. And then Detroit is a big catalyst for how I actually started my career. I started my career in Detroit, and you know, obviously, I'm here in Houston. I'm in Houston, Texas. And I'm proud to say I was kind of a part of the beginning of the tech boom in Detroit. So this will now get into my journey and how I got here non-traditionally. So I did, I did go to college for computer science, but again, growing up in a single parent household, we couldn't really afford the college. I ended up in project management, surprisingly, and I did that for a little bit, but I didn't feel fulfilled. And I was like, I need to figure out how to get back to what I've always said that I wanted to do growing up, which was development and figuring it out. So around that time where I was just kind of in this in this transitional phase of okay, how do I get back to something I love? I like this project management, I like the money it's bringing me, but I don't enjoy what I'm doing really. And literally that day, there was a boot, there's a boot camp in in Detroit that dropped a program that was sponsored by Facebook. So Cheryl Seinberg and Mark Zuckerberg were looking to make Detroit a tech hub. So what they did was they sponsored some seats at that boot camp. And out of the hundreds of people that applied, only 15 of us were selected. And I say us because I was one of the first cohorts to learn a framework called React, which is, you know, Facebook is they built React, and React is a huge framework that is used, you know, in the industry now. So here I am kind of submitting my work. And and the funny thing is, I think they like my personality a lot because the the web page and my application that I had to put in, we had to build a web page, and at that time, you know, I was pressured. And I think I remember vividly the title of my webpage is I don't know what I'm doing, but I know where I want to go. And I feel like that kind of put me at the top of the application list. So yeah, I was a part of that big tech boom. We were the first cohort to graduate, and then that ended up turning into them offering scholarships for a lot more people because again, they want to make Detroit a tech hub. So my time at Detroit, again, like kind of put me in a space where you know I was able to network with a lot of people, and then the boot camp that I went to kind of put me in front of in front of some folks. I'm not sure how much name dropping I can do, but you know, with with the hustle that came with Detroit, I ended up grabbing an opportunity at Afrotech. Shout out to Afrotech. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to my first Afrotech and airline company. I I networked my way into the software director, and he loved me and flew me to Dallas. And I interviewed on the spot and they offered me the job. And he he was aware of my background. He was aware that you know I was still trying to figure it out, but he he could see the hustle. He can see that you know I was you know pretty self. I went to that boot camp, and that's how I got to Texas. So again, Detroit always got love for Detroit. I've been there my whole life until I wasn't right. But it it was the baseline to where I am now. I bring that Detroit crit, I bring that hustle, I bring that love. Like you mentioned, like Detroit people, we cool. We real, we real cool. We show up, we show out, we hustlers. Yeah, that Detroit hustle, no matter what it is, if it's money, if it's figuring out something. But that's that's just a deep rooted hustle that we have, and I'm gonna always rep Detroit. I'm gonna always rep my home. I'm really happy you guys are going there. Yeah, yeah, I think I might be there around the time you're there. So let me we'll talk about it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Yeah, I think it's a big open house and they are packing out the room.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

I'm proud of it.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

And so we're excited. Yeah, shout out to AfroTech. We actually went to Afrotech event in Detroit while we were there. So we got to see that hustle in the room and connect with so many great people who work in in tech or had an idea. I love a lot of things that you said. So we actually just wrapped up for our tech product with Amazon. We had did an accelerator program with them. So it's good to talk to you to see how it started there and everything just took off from there. That's how we felt when we left Seattle. Like, man, we were able, like you said, we had an idea, we just needed the right platform to get us there. And now we were able to figure it out. So now we're able to be able to roll it out thanks to Amazon support. So all those things, like being in the right room, boot camps, people don't give enough credit to those boot camps. Yo, me and my husband were able to build our product because he had gone to so many boot camps, right? And we're, and so people think, yes, uh, you know, college degrees are the only way there. It's it's I, you know, got my college degree, but it's not the only way there.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

It's not the only way. And I'm a and I'm a huge advocate for that. I not only do I volunteer with you, but uh I volunteer for another corporation where I go to underprivileged high schools and I talk about my journey or I and I teach computer science. And I'm I mean, I I walk in there loud and proud with you know, college is cool. And you know, if college is your thing, sometimes college is just not for everybody or it's not affordable. That's it doesn't stop there. I mean, I'm I'm in there gleaned out, iced out. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm a representation of you know who we see every day. And I was able to do it in in a in a way that you probably have never heard. So I'm a huge advocate. I love answering questions outside of the college, you know, the college path of of you know this this career because you you can get there with college. You absolutely you can, but there's there's a lot of hustle in a non-college way, let me tell you. Yeah, especially mentality.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

I love that because you do boot camps, they they are tough.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

They're that's the hardest thing I ever did. That was the hardest thing I've ever done. I mean, I was still working full time 40 hours a week as a project manager on top of doing that boot camp. People don't realize we're squeezing two years worth of engineering in two and a half months, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

So it's a lot of work, but you know, you feel good coming out, like our accelerator, it was about a week long, uh-huh, and it was like 12 hours a day.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Oh you had it light, you had it, you had it real, like 12 hours a day. I mean, I wasn't sleeping.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

We felt like for me, I was loving it because I was like, I get to step out of that CEO hat and go back to my roots of technical training. So I was eating it all up, but like the sleep, sleep was missed, so yeah, the boot camps, they're gonna push you hard.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

I mean, my exit, my exit application was called stress eating because we realized we was picking up weight because we was eating so much, so like we built a yeah, we built the app to kind of help people mitigate from eating bad stuff. Like it was pretty cool, but it was like real life experience. Okay, this is a problem that we had, and we solved the problem by building this app to help people stay healthy while having you know strenuous lives and and and work and work lives.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

So no, all that. So I'm happy that we did have this discussion about boot camp. I know people, a lot of people that I know that stressing boot camps, stressing trades, schools, all that is needed. So I want people to understand there are multiple pathways to get to this field and choose the one that's best for you because college can be very expensive. And so, and then life happens on your current your college journey. I I have to mentor a lot of girls through their college journey, and it's not easy when life throws itself at you. So choose your path. If it's a boot camp, go to the boot camp. But whatever you choose, give it your all. All of it is very important. Absolutely. So great thing. I'm hoping to see you in Detroit. We do our thing, and uh let's talk about now what you do on a day-to-day now, all around front work front end engineering. Let's get into that. So I like to say this from a perspective of the youth when they hear words like front-end engineering and all these things, those are big words. So, like you, you you already mentioned the importance of that that cultural connection and showing up as yourself. So, explain this to them, our youth, where it connects to them more outside of just it being a title, so they can understand what it is that you do on a day-to-day and how your day-to-day looks.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Absolutely. So, when you think of front-end engineering, the easiest thing is even talking to the gamers, what you see and how you interact with it. So, on the websites you see, all the apps you see, the video games you watch, anything technical, there's a front-end engineer who puts it all together. So, if I talk about the day-to-day of what my job looks like, you know, I go into work, I meet with my team, I gather information. We call it requirements in the technical field, gather information on what needs to be built. And then I take a picture from, I think you said you had a UX designer answered to them. They put together a picture for me to translate to text. So they're talking to me in in human English language and pictures, and I'm talking to the computer and computer languages to make it visible for for you, the consumer, right? So day to day, again, I I get that that representation of what that should look like and the problem that I need to solve. So small things, button, how should this button work? How should this picture look? Where should it be placed? What's going to keep people engaged with whatever we're trying to present here? So I mean, I spend maybe about six hours uh digging into and being creative in in translating those we call them wireframes, translating those wireframes slash pictures into a technical version of whatever it is I'm working on.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

So no, perfectly sad is exactly what you see. People don't understand, like when they're diving into their phone or into their favorite app application, how much work goes into making it user-friendly. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

And how many layer and how many layers it is, right? You know, you think it's just one engineer doing it. There's so many different parts of engineering that goes into it. And front end, we're the first. We're the we're we're the first thing you see, and and biasly the most important, right? Because we're responsible for making sure people come back and making sure their experience is good. So, you know, you might go on a website and be like, why is this button not working? Why, why would a pop-up screen pop up over here? Why would why would you know anything can go wrong and like in your head, you're like, I'm not coming back to this site, I'm not about to go through this. So it's important that we make that user experience good so people can continue to come back to us.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Yeah, I I don't I don't want to brag, but I be feeling like y'all the best part for me. That's the part I like to do.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

I will brag. We are very important. We are very important, and we gotta tell companies they be trying to short us and say that we yeah, we're hot tech product.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

My husband does a lot of the front and back end. Back end is very important, but I always tell him, let me know when it's time to get to the front end to design. Yeah, because that's the part I am like always in tune with. Like, how is it gonna work? How is it gonna look? How is the layout?

SPEAKER_02 20:54

How's it gonna feel? Am I gonna come back? You think about your favorite apps, you know, you think about Airbnb, you think about Instagram. Yeah, so you you you don't realize that's a user experience, but you continue to go back because you like what you see and you like your interaction with it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

So yeah, and and companies have a they should have a huge appreciation for what you do because you are the driver that Keith bringing their consumers back to their platforms. Absolutely. So I hope that they do understand that. So it yes, it's what you see. So I want to talk a little bit about the arts, because we have a lot of girls and youth that we work with that are artists, and uh I like to always tell people because they always get on me because they always like you always say stem, but you don't bring the A in. And in my mind, I do because I'm all about digital art and everything that we do has an art element. I'm just a little old school, so I just say STEM. All right, my space. So I understand the A is very much so important, and then people be like, you need to put it in there, and I and I do put it in. There, quite often, with the work that we do. But for those creative, I love digital art. I have a lot of girls who are like, they want to do marketing. I'd be like, that's a technical thing, like how you design. So, how does art play with what do you do in your role? And do you love being an artist in your spare time outside of doing this work?

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah. Okay, two partners. So art plays a pretty big role, right? People who are typically front-end engineers usually have an eye. They have an eye for, you know, nice things and things to look nice. So, like when you think about you looking at art and you being an artist, it's usually the visual aspect you want people to appreciate. So front-end engineering is just, I feel like the digital part of that, right? And so I'm able to use my creativity and even just have that extra eye, right? I mean, the shout out to the UX designers because they do a lot of that work for us, they do a lot of that research and tell us exactly what to do. But I can look at a certain blue of, say, for instance, a certain shade of blue and be like, that kind of doesn't, it's not a good comparison to this pink that is next to. Let's do a different shade of blue. So, I mean, to me, that's where my my artist skills come come into play because you just have that certain eye and a certain knack to catch things that people typically wouldn't look for, but in the back of their mind or even unconsciously, they appreciate, right? You might you might not click the dark blue button because you're not attracted to the hue of the blue blue, but because I've already pointed out that that people are not gonna that blue, they might like this this warmer blue, you know. I feel like that's where the where the art comes in. And then outside of work, oh absolutely, I do mixed media arts where I'm combining the different types of art styles, and and photography is a big one. I'm starting to get back into film photography. Yeah, I love film photography. There's a there's a again aging myself, we have filters back in the day. You know, I've I've I did film photography for a while. I did it from high school to the beginning of my college career, and you have to have you got to know what you're doing with those film for those, those that film camera because it can get expensive. So it's something that I enjoy and something I'm loving getting back into because it is just nostalgic and it and it feels good. It feels good to have to break away from you know, developing requirements and and things and actually doing something that I really, really love, you know.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

So no, that's important. I always tell people, I know now you're making me feel like I'm about to start aging myself. A lot of people always talk about work-life balance and things like that. And I always tell people, you need that hobby, that passion alongside the work that we do as STEM professionals because that work is hard. It is and a lot of hours, and you need to be able to break free to go do what it is that you're passionate about and love to do to keep your mind clear and recharge.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

You recharge so you can get your self and your best work and and continue to move forward in your career. Life work-life balance. I think people, I don't know, people don't take it serious. Me, my work life balance is amazing. I I set those boundaries. I set the boundaries.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

Oh, yeah. So you can have a whole episode just on boundaries because I have perfective minds.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'll be shaking stuff up because I'll be like, mm-hmm. I talk to y'all when it's time.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Yeah. And I'll feel no kind of way about it. So for my heroes, that you are our artists, you like to create, or people who are trying to transition into tech, because that is such a hot topic still. A lot of people are trying to make that transition or just get into a role. There is a role for you in technology. We need your artistic eye. We need all of that in this space. So if you are considering what is your next thing, this can be a role for you. Front-end engineering, we've talked about our wonderful UX people. Those are your roles. Graphic designers, yeah. Yeah, we love our graphic designers too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they all have a huge part in making things look great and user-friendly. So these roles can be for you. So let's get into a little bit about projects that you're working on. Can you give us a I know you can't say too much, but like ideas around projects that you work on that people could understand?

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Yeah, I can I can I can talk about a couple of things. I can talk about some things that I have worked on. What I'm currently working on right now is internal application for the company that I work for. And it's it's pretty big, it has big eyes on it. Our CEO kind of is is watching, and I'm talking about this company is global, is a global company that I'm sure everybody knows. And and I'm and it's it's fun because I am using my typical front-end engineering and doing it more mobile, right? So I've touched mobile apps in my career, but this is full on application building, but it's really fun trans, you know, kind of translating the skills that I know and and and putting it on somebody's phone, right? And then some of the cool apps that I have worked on is I've worked on some stuff with Microsoft. So you know, the youth, you don't know this yet. I don't know if it'll be around when when you when you come into the workforce, but Microsoft Teams, I've I've worked on some features in in that. So that was a I'm telling you, black girl from Detroit, no college degree, but I can show my friends something that they use every day that I've worked on. You know what I mean? And then I mean, and there's other other sites that I've that I've touched that you know you can be familiar with, but that it it can it it can be fun, and there's projects that I haven't really liked that much, but you know, I still put my all into it at the end of the day. It's a rip representation of myself and like where I'm moving in my career, so yeah, you kind of gotta deal with it all, you know, being in this industry.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

I'm happy you said that because a lot of people don't talk about the stuff they don't like with these roads. We talk about the challenges and the struggles that we go through in our roads. We don't talk about the work that we do that I ain't feeling at. Like, yeah, I always have to say they're project managers because I was like a really good project manager, but me too, girl.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

I was a great project manager. So I like my head down focus and and and being creative. Project management was just it was it's the other side of my brain, and yeah, you know, I I like to stay on the creative side, which is why I was itching to get back to where I am now.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

So yeah, for me, I'm an innovator, so I didn't want to do stuff that ain't never been done before. But absolutely I was good at project management and and and I always delivered on time. It was like, okay, you're gonna be a project manager.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

That was me.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

It did, I do still take those great skills I learned from project manager, print project management. I use it every day.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Yes, ma'am. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

I'm happy I got that experience. So people don't really talk enough about whatn't feeling that, but we should because that's how you grow. That's how you're able to be like, okay, I tried that, let's try something new. Not to me, just use that. So you you mentioned a team that you manage and lead. So let's talk a little bit about leadership because I've been having some great conversations with some amazing women, and a lot of people have been talking about those soft skills. Yes. So we are trying to make sure that our youth, our college students, everyone that listens to Black Girls Doing podcasts is understanding what soft skills are and how they play play a huge part in leadership. So tell us what are some of those skills you may be using in leadership? And overall, how is leadership going for you with your team?

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I'm gonna come back to that project management. Project management was a great start for me to kind of develop the soft skills. I mean, I've always had pretty good soft skills because I've done pretty well in school. So I'm used to having conversations and and talking to bigger folks and whatnot. But what I can say is with me being an engineer, it's built my confidence. So, you know, when you think about engineering, you even if you are interested in engineering, it can it can be a little intimidating, right? So because I was able to conquer the things that I've conquered, I walk around with my chest up. I'm an engineer, right? So the engineering has has, you know, built my confidence to help me communicate a lot better, right? Because I again I can speak on things that I've built, right? Microsoft. Microsoft is a big well-known company, and I've I've been a part of that, right? So soft skills are really important to communicate with people because if you can't communicate efficiently, then you get nowhere. So huge part of the role being able to talk and even explain what you're doing, because everybody's not technical, right? So, you know, a good space to be in is consulting, like technical consulting, where you can be technical but also be someone who can communicate to folks, and it's important for you to be able to take that tech talk and and make it to where everybody can understand. And as far as leadership, yeah, I've uh, you know, I've led some teams, I lead teams, everybody, everybody's different, but the good thing about the soft skills is you learn how to communicate with folks on their level or you know, in in a way in which it isn't, you know, going to be bad to them or present it bad to them. Me as a leader, again, toot my own horn. I haven't gotten a lot of bad feedback because I think I I'm more people first. Like I know I know kind of the struggle that I went through, kind of being unseen as you know, someone who didn't have a college degree. So I make sure to keep people like a people first mind. I mean, obviously we have these things that we have to deliver, but at the end of the day, we're all human. So I approach my leadership in that way. I approach leadership as a hey, come on, you know, we gotta do it this way. And usually people can connect with me in that way. It doesn't always have to be so jargony, but that's the that's where those soft skills come in. You can recognize who and how you can talk to folks, and it is very important. I mean, like I said, I do have my head down and behind the screen, but it's still very important to be able to communicate with folks.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

So yeah, I love that you said that. So being people first, that is something that is very important. Now, do all people conquer that? No, some people are still working on that, but having that skill is everyone, I feel should have it. I mean, you need to treat people as people, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

I mean, and you get I feel like you get a a lot more done that way because like, oh, you understand me. Okay, cool. I'll I'm like you said, there's not a lot of people who've who conquered that skill. So I feel like people respect me a little bit more because it's like I never really have, you know, somebody of this caliber in in a professional space like this. And it's just yeah, I'm just being real, you know, like let's get to let's work together and get this done.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

Yeah, yeah. So that was one of the things when we did our accelerator, you know. Shout out to you people from the midway, west, and east coast. Y'all just chill. You chill. And one of the things I challenge myself for my own self was to just be me. Stay true to me and be me. Because a lot of times in our industry, it's not that many of us. A lot of people have been showing a lot, even on all over the internet. People have been showing their code switching and all that. I'm like how we have to turn it on and turn it off. Okay, that is a thing. And so when you're in these spaces, you do a lot of code switching.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Yeah, I've I've I definitely had to get out of that. Uh again, earlier in my career, I can definitely say that I was that, but I bring my full self to interviews. I start that early because at the end of the day, if you can't appreciate me for who I am, it's not the culture for me. I will I don't want to give my energy away to something that I'm not to make somebody else happy. So it's you gotta accept all of me and how I um and it's been working, you know. I might have been personal every now and again.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

I don't know. So when I went accelerator, and that was one of me, my well, my my styles, he's gonna be myself, he's so brookly. But yeah, for me, like I'm just gonna be myself, and I can tell you this is the best networking experience of my life, and I've been networking for years, and I'm made so many connections with so many people just for being cool, too, and myself.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

It's just authentic, even people can people can read that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

A lot of people can read that. They gravitate towards that, and so it's good to see that you said that from day one because most people in interviews be like, okay, I'm gonna tell you all the good and show you all how I can fit in. But you're pretty much saying to the interviewer, no, you need to fit in with me too. Yeah, absolutely. I I tell them real quick. So yeah, you're real chill. So I can tell people can just vibe with you, and it does make your leadership journey a lot better, for sure. Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about representation on that note. So I know you do a lot of work with us, for sure. You're most definitely one of the pieces of representation that comes in the room for us. So I want to talk about a few things. First, being a black woman in the tech space, like how does that feel for you to show up as black women in this space? Because you know there's not that many of us. I believe it's less than 2% in tech. Overall, with black women is less than 3% in STEM. So normally we're showing up as the only many times. So, how that feels for you? And and you've talked a little bit at the beginning about how you're doing work now just with us, but with other works too, to give back. But let's talk also about what's the importance of you going back to build up the future of technologies.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Yeah, and and like you mentioned, there's not a lot of us. You know, it is few and far in between. I see another me in the space that I'm in, and it is tough. It is tough. It feels isolating a little bit because you know, you we connect with each other, right? We vibe with each other, we feed off the energy, but at the end of the day, it is still very it makes me want to do more because it's like you need more of us in here because look at what I can do, like look at what I can bring. There's so many more of us out here, and that kind of brings it back to why I do what I do because it's yo, I need y'all to come show up in this space that I'm in because we need us here, and they need us here. They don't realize how much they need us here, and I think a lot of us don't show up because we don't know we can do it, you know. And we don't we don't know we can do it. I can't tell you how many times I've gone into classrooms, and the questions I get is well, you did this and how much you make, and I'm I'm open. I tell them anything they want to know because let's keep it real. You you tell them how much money you make, and you don't have to be a basketball player to do this, you know what I mean? So it's it can be isolating, but what I found is important is even though it's isolating, a lot of companies do they have groups and spaces where we can get together and kind of connect in our own way, and even finding spaces outside of work where you know you find like-minded folks, and I and I feel like you know, slowly and for surely, it's more of us coming in this space. So it's it's working, it is working in a sense, probably not as fast as we would like to be, but any motion is good motion with the isolation. Uh, you know, that can bring what we call imposter syndrome, which is like I don't belong at this table, but you gotta you gotta snap out of it because we do, and you're paving the way for more of us to be at that table with with you. So I think it's important to just kind of find your community and and you know work together, find that motivation within each other.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

So no, all of that is important because nine times out of ten, I know for me, I was always the only one. And so it's so very isolating. And I always talk about mindset shift, like we have to change our mindset. The beauty of because of we are doing the great work, how we're opening up the doors for so many other black women to come behind us, and that is it should be encouraging for a lot of people who want to give up, right? Yeah, those frustrating days, like we are opening up doors. I can say too from black girls do engineer data, like we're we're putting them in this space. So it feels good when I start seeing our older ones studying engineering or going to a course now.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

No, y'all doing y'all doing great stuff. I when I I like brag about what you're doing because it's important to me. It's really important. As you can see, like I'm showing up, I'm like, Yeah, I'm going on because it's it's really important to put us in these spaces because we belong here, we belong here, and we are a lot of proud about us being in this space. So I pre-shout out to you, kudos to you.

SPEAKER_03 39:11

Well, you know, you know, because of you, I'm able to do it because we need all the help. It's a lot of work. Um all day I've been designing coding activities. So it's a lot of work, but they need that, like you said, like all those conversations, they ask you questions, they have no awareness. This is my thing. I yell from the mountaintop when I'm talking to my partners and people in general, because our community they don't know, and it's not I don't, I it's not our fault.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Like it's not fault, you know. We we just definitely we just don't know. We don't know. I didn't I didn't know what a front-end engineer was. I just so happened to make my way there. That was the path that was created for me. But you know, luckily I've had that exposure, and I knew I didn't have that exposure growing up, which is why it's so important for me to get out there and make sure it gets exposed as much as I can.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Like, yeah, you never know who's like my thing. Had not I done well in school and people finally mentioning stuff like it to me or seeing that I can excel in chemistry, I wouldn't probably have been here, you know? Yeah, so it's like I try to do the job of making sure our community knows in many, many, many ways, as you know. And so it's good that we're having this conversation so that they can learn more about what you do and the importance of it. You have worked on some great big products that they when they listen to this podcast episode, our wonderful listeners, they're gonna be like, man, like I can do that, and like they know they can do it too. So that that's our hope from these conversations, so they can know what you do. I love how you said the non-traditional route to get there. I use that too for being in college, so it's good to hear other people say it because a lot of times people don't talk about that journey of hey, it's other route, so they can know that it's other options from this conversation and that you know we're doing the part to be able to get more youth in this space, period. So it's good to hear your insight on representation, and that you said there are more coming because I can tell you how many times I was smile in industry when girls are coming with their natural hair.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Yo, yo, soon as somebody walk in, you you give it away. I'm here too. Yeah, but that I'm saying it's it kind of sucks that that's how it is, but you know, it soon it won't be, you know.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

I don't agree, and it and I want people to also understand it's important for us to be in the space that you're in because of how tech tech is evolving so fast, and so if we're not creating a lot of what represents our culture will not be in all these new tech technology ways, we talk about AI and all this all the time, but in design, period. It won't we won't be represented. So representation is huge. So on that same note, before we wrap, I do want to ask you the first question would be what do you wish someone would have told you as a youth to prepare you for this moment?

SPEAKER_02 42:25

What do I wish someone would have told me as a youth to prepare me for this moment? I I honestly wish somebody would have told me that I could do it.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Right?

SPEAKER_02 42:36

I mean, I I I have my own motivation, but again, I I I didn't see me. I didn't I didn't see me doing it. And I feel like if I would have had that, you know, that somebody just kind of whispering in my ear, yo, you can make this happen, I would have jumped in in it a lot earlier. I would have, I would have taken a lot, you know, I would have taken advantage of it a lot earlier. I mean, I am a still a firm believer of everything happens how it's supposed to, but that's one thing that I can change. I wish I had representation. I wish I had somebody tell me that I can do it, that me, single parent, single mom, household, I can first gen, I can do it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

So yeah, I completely understand. My my mom is a single mom, and her job was taking care of the home. You know, she she that's what she had to do. So it's it's hard growing up that way. But I agree. I always that's why I always told the youth, like how you love video games. Instead of just watching play video games, having someone just say, Hey, you know what you can do with that.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

You can actually build that. You can actually build that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

That would have changed your whole idea. I've I have a great story around a young man I was working with. He wanted to be a rapper. And a lot of times kids get criticized for saying, I want to be a rapper these days, what a YouTube content creator. And I don't criticize that. I say, oh, okay, that's cool. But have you ever thought about being the producer?

SPEAKER_02 44:07

And the bigger picture. Let's think of all the other aspects of it, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

You know, and when you open your eyes to those things, or even for my content creators, I always say, Hey, you ever thought about being behind the camera?

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Do you want to editing?

SPEAKER_03 44:23

Yeah, I do want to editing.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

Your name is normally the one listed, you know, and those royalties and that money goes to you. And so, you know, they only, like you said, we're front-end engineering. That's what you see. They all they could do is they can see.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

And so it's important for us to kind of like and for this is for my parents, for my educators. Are you seeing these children having a love and passion for something, whether it's sports? I always tell I have friends who have great SWIC SWAC championships and many championships as engineers today. Kind of still have those conversations so they can know all their options. You can really change someone's life really could by knowing that. Exposure, for sure. Yeah. So I love that part. And my second follow-up question before we wrap would be what would you tell a young girl today to help her along her way?

SPEAKER_02 45:14

Girl, you belong here. You absolutely belong here. You can do this. And truthfully, it may be harder than you would like it to be. But we are born to work through those challenges, and we have the capability to do it. And once you believe in yourself and realize that you really can do it, it's curtains from there. So the big you can do this. You belong here. This is your seat at the table. Don't let nobody tell you otherwise because I promise you you can do this.

SPEAKER_03 45:53

Beautifully said, that's the best way to wrap up our wonderful conversation. And I want to thank you so much for being here and having this conversation with me. Hey, thank you for having me. Oh, it's been such a pleasure. What I want people to take from this episode is this technology is not just built behind the scenes. Somebody has to create the experience people actually interact with every single day. So today's journey, we talked about how to show up as yourself, the importance of front end engineering, and that it's more than coding, right? It's communication, creativity, problem solving, and understanding people. And for every student listening, especially those who are creative, curious, or interested in tech, there is a space for you here. Thank you for giving us a real look into what front-end engineering is and what it means to build technology with intention. So, and thank you for listening to the Black Girls Do Engineer podcast, where we build confidence, community, and futures in STEM. I'll see you in the next episode. To learn more about Black Girls New Engineer, visit us on our website at Blackgirls2engineer.org or email us directly at info at blackgirls to engineer.org.